Maxwell D. WigginsSPRINGFIELD – Hampden Superior Court Judge Peter A. Velis told jurors on Wednesday that he expects they will begin deliberations in the murder trial of Swinkles V. Laporte and Maxwell D. Wiggins on Tuesday or Wednesday.
He said that the expected date for ending the testimony and sending the case to the jury is within the sixth week of trial.
Laporte and Wiggins, both 20-year-old city men, are accused of fatally shooting Tracy L. Bennett outside her Parallel Street home in August 2007.
Police have said Bennett was shot when she came home as two armed and masked men who had just robbed her children came out of the house. No one saw the shooting.
On Wednesday city police officer Jason Laviolette, called by the defense, testified that he talked to a man who saw two men wearing dark hooded sweatshirts running near the scene of the shooting. Laviolette said that he did not recall the man giving any further description of the men.
Swinkels V. Laporte The defense then began calling as witnesses people who knew Laporte and Wiggins and had interactions with them the night of Aug. 29, 2007, when Bennett was killed.
At the end of the day Wednesday, Kamari Schoolfield, Wiggins’ girlfriend at that time, was asked by defense lawyer Jeffrey S. Brown about calls between herself and Wiggins that night.
Schoolfield, 18, of Springfield, said that she talked to Wiggins on his home telephone at 9:19 p.m. and Wiggins said he was going to Laporte’s house.
She said Wiggins called her at 10:31 p.m. from Laporte’s home telephone and told her he was heading home. The robbery and shooting happened around 10 p.m.
Among the more than 100 exhibits the jury will have in deliberations are telephone records for several telephone numbers.
The trial is scheduled to resume Thursday with Schoolfield still on the witness stand.